Letters to the Editor

As a middle-class, middle-age teacher, I have learned to expect
teachers' unions, organizations, and publications to present the
liberal point of view. Last month's letter from John Wilson
["Letters,'' March] decried the lack of two points of view in an
article you published about Columbus ["What Happened In 1492?''
January]. I would like to point out to you a quote from that same issue
regarding President Bush as the "education president'': "Less than a
quarter of those polled gave him an A or B, a full 25 percent gave him
a D or F.''

Since a quarter equals 25 percent, I suspect that the two figures
were actually very close (22 percent or 24 percent vs. 25 percent). But
the words that you chose to use make a different impression. On
purpose? I guess over half the people polled gave him a C, which is
about what he would get from me, but that majority result wasn't
mentioned at all.

Since I have subscribed to Teacher Magazine, there have been many
issues that have been so good that I have made it a point to pass them
on to other teachers. I hope that the quality of the discussions about
current, meaningful educational issues will continue in upcoming
issues. I especially appreciate that you have positive stories to
inspire good teaching in these days of such negative press about
education.

Virginia Hall
Victorville, Calif.

Good Riddance

I'm glad Edward Rauchut ["Viewpoint,'' February] quit. I'm only
sorry he continues to teach at a college. I wonder if he isn't the
"dysfunctional system'' he claims schools are. He does a lot of
complaining but says nothing substantial. In my own teaching career, I
avoid this type of person, someone who spends most of the time
complaining and very little time trying to solve problems. Maybe the
school system cannot be changed as fast as we would like, but we can
begin with ourselves. When the door is closed in a classroom, the
teacher determines how to proceed. Being an example of good teaching
practice is far more effective than complaining. Teaching is not just a
job; it is a lifetime's work. If you don't like it, can't handle it, or
won't do anything about it, then it's time to leave.

Victoria Zimmer
Sacramento, Calif.

How can Rauchut just quit? Is this what we teach our children?
Should we quit when things become difficult?

You can't change a system unless you're a part of that system.

I thought teachers had the power to make a difference. Maybe Rauchut
could have been the teacher who made a difference in some child's life,
the teacher who gave a child his or her "moment of motivation,'' a
moment that would change that life forever. Instead, he chose to
quit.

Joyce Barnes
Lebanon, Ohio

MACOS Is Alive

Your book review of Schoolhouse Politics ("Books,'' February) seems
to suggest that "Man: A Course of Study,'' MACOS for short, is a dead
and buried curriculum.

While the historic impact of the forces Peter Dow chronicles can
hardly be overstated, the fact is that the program is still published
and sold in this country and is currently used by a small but committed
minority of excellent teachers in uncommonly good schools. I know this
because they buy the materials from us.

Curriculum Development Associates Inc. is a small publishing company
whose singular focus is the publication and promulgation of learning
materials and teaching methods that teach learning skills in the study
of subject matter. We are delighted to be able to offer MACOS along
with several other programs that provide support for such
better-than-average instruction. Should any of your readers wish more
information, I hope they will contact me directly.

Funny how some obscure, little point in a news story can catch your
eye...and turn your stomach. I refer to the short article about the
Illinois principal found guilty of encouraging her teachers to cheat on
standardized student achievement tests ["In Brief,'' February]. The
last paragraph states: "In early January, the local school board was
considering whether to demote [the principal]...to a teaching
job.''

This is the second time I've read a story in an educational journal
that inadvertently denigrated teaching in this manner. The other was a
story in a state education department newsletter lauding one of their
own recently retired bureaucrats for having "started at the bottom as a
classroom teacher and worked his way up.'' For some reason, I do not
see assignment to classroom teaching as a "demotion,'' nor do I feel
like the pedagogic equivalent of the "office boy.''

As a 25-year veteran classroom teacher, I've come to expect this
attitude from non-educators, but it jump-starts peristalsis to see such
Freudian slips in our own professional journals.

Terry McCormick
Port Allegany (Pa.) High School

As a reader of your magazine, I was very disappointed to see the
derogatory reference to teachers in the February issue. In a magazine
called Teacher, or in any educational publication for that matter,
teaching should not be considered as a demotion or a punishment for
wrongdoing. As for the school board, if this person was considered not
competent to be a principal because of her dishonest behavior, what
makes them think she should be in a classroom influencing children?

Adele Wenz
White Plains, N.Y.

Demoted to a teaching job? Being a classroom teacher is not a
demotion but the choice of many educators. And a principal who
encourages cheating on standardized tests has no place being in a
classroom.

Carol Hanthorne
Spencer, Iowa

Gun Education

The January issue of Teacher Magazine included an article called
"Fatal Attraction'' about the problem of guns in schools. As I read the
article, I found myself wondering how professional educators could
ignore an obvious solution to the problem--EDUCATION.

It's true that youngsters are fascinated with guns--the media and
our popular culture make it almost inevitable. The article quotes
Charles Patrick Ewing, a professor of law and psychology at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, as saying, "Guns are almost
unreal.'' He has hit the nail on the head and missed the point
entirely: Make them real! Let children know that guns are real, deadly
weapons. They are not adult toys or coffee table artifacts.

In the article, Dewey Cornell, a clinical psychologist and an
associate professor at the University of Virginia, offers a bloody
example: "A 14-year-old girl, who was angry at her boyfriend for
cheating on her, grabbed a household gun and fatally shot a neighbor
who got in her way.'' Cornell blames the availability of the gun.
Equally important is the fact that a 14-year-old girl who had access to
a gun was never taught gun safety. She knew she was angry. She knew
that when people on television are angry they grab a gun. It probably
never occurred to her that by picking up that gun she could kill
someone.

All gun owners--especially parents--have the responsibility of
making their guns safe. That means more than hiding them in a closet.
It means educating their children and educating the public that guns
are weapons. They kill.

Schools have taken on the job of educating children about sex, AIDS,
and drugs. Why then, do schools lament the "fatal attraction'' of guns
without offering the education that could prevent their misuse? Telling
adolescents that they can't or shouldn't have something (guns, drugs,
sex) is like tempting them to go out and get it. It would be much wiser
to give children the information that they need to help them make their
own (hopefully intelligent) decisions.

We must teach kids that guns kill. It sounds so obvious, but we
watch it every day on television and never really see it. Show a movie
that depicts the real death of real people who have families and
feelings. Make it a gory movie like After the Prom, which we all saw in
driver's education to teach us about drunk driving.

The National Rifle Association has a reputation for being a lobbying
organization for hunters and gun owners. It is also a valuable source
of information. The NRA has made a commitment "to promote the
protection and safety of children, not to teach whether guns are good
or bad.'' The NRA Education Division offers gun safety materials and
would probably design more if schools were interested in using
them.

I am not an NRA member. I am not even a gun owner. But I am trying
to deal with realities, consequences, and education rather than mass
hysteria. I do not believe that guns belong in schools any more than I
believe that drugs belong in schools. Our job as responsible adults and
teachers should be to make the schools as safe as we can. Rather than
moaning and groaning about problems, teachers should educate children
about those problems.

Susan Frenchu
Hopewell, N.J.

A Valid Diagnosis

I am writing in reference to the letter by Patricia Roach
["Letters,'' January]. I am a counselor in an elementary school, and I
share her frustration at the methods used to diagnose and treat
attention deficit disorder ["Teaching A Moving Target,'' October].

It takes weeks and sometimes months for me to gain the trust of a
new student and for him or her to feel safe disclosing the presence of
emotional, physical, or sexual abuse to me. Often when there is a
learning problem, I see parents rush their child to a psychologist or
pediatrician who conducts one interview, possibly does some testing,
and sends the child home with a label and the hope that a drug will
solve the problem. He or she never hears the child's whole story, what
the child has witnessed in the way of family violence--physical or
emotional. The parents certainly don't volunteer it.

It's my understanding that for a valid ADD diagnosis, emotional
problems should be ruled out; but in my experience, that is often not
the case.

Many of the children I see with learning problems are living in
alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional families. To watch parents reach
for a drug to control the symptoms is very sad.

Mary Burnett
Mobile, Ala.

Name Withheld

From the first copy of Teacher Magazine, I saw a clarity in the
editorial policy that reflected an uncommon sensibility. I saw an
unsentimental caring. I think a hand works best when it lets
knowledgeable others do the making and the saying. Perhaps it was the
distress of change, the new format, and the crisis about monies that
resulted in the approval of the "name withheld'' letter ["Letters,''
January].

Calamity Janes are usually mean-tempered, and this person is no
exception. If the letter was intended as a comment on Jonathan Kozol's
Savage Inequalities ["Season Of Darkness,'' October], it wasn't. It was
a catalog of put-downs. The letter writer describes, for example,
"paying for certain items from my own pocket. Seeing things I paid for
vandalized or stolen...delicate equipment would be broken in less than
a week,'' etc.

A streetwise staff locks up good equipment. What I hear in this
letter is the mindless voice of history's oppressors: Blame the victim.
Of course children steal. Of course they break equipment. They also
stop--with one or two exceptions--when they are helped with their work
and addressed as young human beings.

Has "name withheld'' been the partner in a rebirth of hope? Has he
or she watched mutually destructive students turn into mutually
supportive students? What I do hear in the letter is the clank of the
cash register on pay day and a 3:01 p.m. departure every day as the
basis for teaching. Those of my colleagues who operate on these
criteria have not many concerns about young human beings nor do they
have much of a commitment to the future, except to decry its
coming.

Burton Shapiro
Bronx, N.Y.

Our New Format

I am not happy with the new format of your magazine because it looks
cheap, it is difficult to copy, and it is inconvenient to store.

Robin Fisher
Librarian
New Britton Elementary School
Fishers, Ind.

As teachers, we have all made mistakes. And you, as a teacher's
teacher, have made a doozy. It concerns the new magazine format. Yes,
"it is the message, not the medium, that really matters.'' But when you
give me a large, bulky, glorified newsletter in place of the
professional magazine format that was worthy of neatly stacking on my
bookshelf for future reference, I feel I have been cheated. Yes, the
message is the same, but the new medium is cumbersome and has an aura
of temporariness.

You have not lost a reader, though, for I will continue to subscribe
to, and devour the message of, Teacher Magazine. But you have spoiled
me with the old medium, and I am resistant to change.

I appreciate your subscription price reduction, but I will gladly
forgo one cola a month to see the old format returned. I will even
sacrifice two colas a month if that is what it will take to see the
top-quality, traditionally styled, old format of Teacher Magazine make
a resurgence.

Rickie Luke
Slidell, La.

I am so sad. Teacher Magazine is the one magazine I read from cover
to cover and save. Yes, I actually return to my back issues from time
to time. Alas, your new format is not conducive to being neatly stacked
and I know the lowered quality of paper will mean faster aging for my
old copies. But I will not desert you. I need you--even in your economy
package. I just think it's too bad that you, like many, are a victim of
the Great Depression of the 1990s.

Randi Bradford
Central High School
Grand Forks, Minn.

Congratulations on your new format. From adversity comes strength. I
give you Piet Hein's "A Maxim for Vikings'': "Here is a fact that
should help you fight a bit longer/Things that don't actually kill you
outright make you stronger.''

Your new format is a noble, heroic improvement. It gives the sense
of something new, current, important, even revolutionary. Don't
apologize.

Robert Johnson
Lamoni, Iowa

Teacher Magazine welcomes letters. They must include your address
and daytime phone number and may be edited for length and clarity. Mail
them to: "Letters,'' Teacher Magazine, 4301 Connecticut Ave., N.W.,
Suite 250, Washington, DC 20008.

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